Nokia revises down first-quarter sales, stock price dips

HELSINKI, Finland - Nokia, the world&#39;s largest cell phone maker, said Tuesday that its sales will fall more than expected in the first quarter but that its profit may rise more than previously forecast. <br> <br> The lowered revenue projection sent Nokia&#39;s share price down 3.8 percent on the Helsinki Stock Exchange. <br> <br> &#34;Net sales for the first quarter are expected to be slightly lower than anticipated, but higher than expected profitability is being driven by Nokia&#39;s core strengths,&#34; Nokia said in a news release. <br> <br> Sales had been projected to decline by 6 to 10 percent in the January-March period. The company did not offer a new projection for first-quarter sales but said it would be below the previous forecast. <br> <br> &#34;Earnings per share is estimated to be at the upper end or even slightly above the earlier indicated range of 0.15 to 0.17 euros (13 cents to 15 cents) for the first quarter,&#34; Nokia said. <br> <br> In line with previous forecasts, Nokia said its mobile phones sales from January to March would be down 3 to 7 percent on the year, while network operations would fall by 25 percent from a year ago. <br> <br> Last year, the group&#39;s net profit was 2.2 billion euros ($1.9 billion), down 44 percent from 3.9 billion euros in 2000. Sales rose 3 percent to 31.1 billion euros ($27.6 billion). <br> <br> Nokia did not mention global mobile phone sales, but in January it endorsed projections of between 420 million and 440 million for the full year. <br> <br> Nokia is based in Espoo just outside Helsinki. It has operations in 130 countries with 54,000 employees. <br> <br> ------ <br> <br> On the Net: <br> <br> Nokia site: http://www.nokia.com <br> <br>

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